Health regeneration

This page discusses how the player health regeneration mechanism works, and how equipment and buffs affect the regeneration rate.[1]

If the player is not hit for some time, health starts regenerating until the player is hit, and the pace at which he regenerates is dependent on:

Player's maximum health: higher health means higher regeneration.

Movement: if the player is standing still, the regeneration rate is 2.5x higher.

Time since the last hit: the longer ago, the higher the regeneration rate; this has a cap of 60 seconds (1 in-game hour), after which the regeneration rate no longer rises.

Buffs and debuffs: for a feel you can have a look at the detailed explanation below, but keep in mind that the numbers do not represent health regeneration directly; they are just factors (higher is better).

The time the player has to wait until regeneration starts is highly variable from roughly 1/10th of a second to 17 seconds (32 seconds on expert mode) and is again dependent on maximum life, movement, and buffs/debuffs.

Health regeneration (HR) is determined by the following formula:
and gives the health per second the player regenerates.

The formula can be split in to 3 parts and a bit of rounding:

The regen part consists of:

health_max: maximum Health of the player.

time: factor for the time that passed until the last hit. A detailed definition can be found in the detailed explanation.

The time value starts at 0, and rises by 1 every 5 seconds for the first 30 seconds. After that, it rises by 1 every 10 seconds, to a maximum of 9. (0<=time<=9) That means this part is 0 for at the first 5 seconds, but reaches 6 after 30 seconds, and 9 after 60 seconds. This does not consider the Shiny Stone buff, which can raise the time value to a maximum of 38, and alters the algorithm in other ways (see below).

The buffs part:

buff: modifiers from the buffs and debuffs. All "R+n" values from the Buff and Debuff section can be added here (the n-part). (There are some buffs which affect other parts of the algorithm; again, see below.) This is the easiest part as the buffs are just added to the regeneration.

The special part consists of:

move: either 0.5 if the player is moving or 1.25 if the player is standing still.

expert: 1, except if the player is in expert mode and has not the well fed buff, then it is 0.5.

All this is rounded to the nearest whole number and finally divided by 2 to get the regeneration per second.

The Player will regenerate HR per second, not considering the 2 buffs Shiny Stone and Rapid Healing. This means if the Player has HR=0.5 they will regain 1 health per 2 seconds and if the player has HR=5 they will regain 5 health per second. (Technically, rather than 5 health per second, they will get 1 health every 12 "ticks" of game time, where 1 second = 60 ticks).

A starting player will start regenerating health after 12 seconds (17 seconds on expert mode) if standing still or 17 seconds (32 expert mode) while moving. After consuming their first Heart Crystal, this drops to 7 seconds while standing still.

Regeneration Time (RT): How long the character has been regenerating for. This normally increases +1 per tick, capped at 3600, and resets to zero when the character takes damage (stopping regeneration).

Regeneration Rate (R): Hit Points (HP) regenerated per tick (1 point of R is equal to 0.5 HP/s). This increases the longer the RT (the longer the player has been avoiding damage).

Regeneration Counter (RC): Increases by R per tick, becomes 120 or over, or -120 or less, it will be reduced or increased by 120, and player will gain or lose 1 health.

The Regeneration Rate (R) determines how fast the RC changes. R is normally 0 or positive, but could be negative if the player is inflicted with any life-draining debuffs, like Poisoned.

The base Regeneration Rate (R) is mainly determined by the Regeneration Time (RT), player's max Health (mHP), and whether player is standing or moving.

First, The RT is converted to an Effective Regeneration Time (eRT).

If RT <= 1800, each 300 RT boosts eRT +1.

If RT > 1800, each 600 RT above 1800 boosts eRT +1.

Here is an illustration of the relationship between RT and eRT:

RT

0~299

300~599

600~899

900~1199

1200~1499

1500~1799

1800~2399

2400~2999

3000~3599

3600

eRT

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Then, the base Regeneration Rate R = (mHP / 400 * 0.85 + 0.15) * eRT

If the player is standing still, R will be multiplied by 1.25.

If the player is moving, it will be multiplied by 0.5.

Finally, it will be rounded to the nearest whole number.

So, for a brief conclusion: the longer player not getting hurt, the higher maxim health player has, the higher for the natural health regeneration rate. Also, standing still gives a 2.5X healing bonus compared to moving. Using an item does not count as moving.

After all of the above, if the player is in Expert mode and does not have a Well Fed buff, R will be multiplied by 0.5.

If the player is using items or not standing still, it will reset the multipliers of the Feral Bite debuff and Expert mode to 0.75 from 0.5. Both of them only reduce the regeneration speed by 25% instead of the previous 50%. It will also multiply base R x1.1.

If the player is not using any items and almost standing still (it allows small amounts of movement), the following effects are applied in addition to those above:

If the player has any life-draining debuffs so that R is less than 0, R is reduced by half (if you also have Honey buff, then it increases R by 4 first(but no more than 0), then, R is reduced by half, finally, the Honey buff additionally increase R by 2.).

R +4.

RT +4 per tick.

If 90 < RT < 1800, RT is reset to 1800.

When RT > 3000, it will remove the RT cap, and every 300 RT above 3000 will boost eRT +1 (this part is capped at 30, so it will give an eRT maxed at 38 instead of the previous 9).

Finally, if R > 0, RC is boosted +1 per tick.

So, if the player is at 600 max HP, with the Shiny Stone and standing still, in Expert mode, without Well Fed:

As player have life-draining debuffs, the RT will remain 0, so player would not get any natural health regeneration.

As R is not more than 0, the Shiny Stone won't provide the RC +1 per tick bonus.

So, player has R=0, and will neither gain or lose health.

Then, if player place a Campfire nearby, it will give R +1 boost and give player a 0.5 HP/s regeneration rate; in addition, as R>0, the Shiny Stone will now provide the RC +1 per tick bonus, which means an additional 0.5 HP/s regeneration rate. So, player will have a 1 HP/s regeneration rate.

However, if player is have Rapid Healing buff (which gives the RC +6 per tick effect and does not affect R) instead of the Campfire, the Shiny Stone won't provide the RC +1 per tick bonus. So player will finally get a 3 HP/s regeneration rate.

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